Where I come from this is not a 'new' paradigm, it is the one I have been working since I started on my aikido journey 17 years ago. In all of those years I have not been outside of my own federation, mainly because I haven't felt the need to and have never felt that the aikido I was learning was lacking in any way.

Yes, this "new paradigm" is actually the original. It was obscured by the timing/distance/posture/technique paradigm and that seems to have spread through most of the world. But you are right that the "new paradigm" is only new to those who have held a different idea all these years.

I've only trained in the US and in Japan, but when I was in Japan I met people from all over the world. I didn't meet anyone who had more power than my Japanese shihans but if those shihans had power like Dan and Ark, they didn't demonstrate it.

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Mark Freeman wrote:

I fully agree with the physical aspects contained within the quote I clipped above, however, in my own experience the 'redirection' of power is not a primarily a physical thing it is mental. Of course the body must be relaxed, co-ordinated (every limb connected to the centre/one point), completely free to move with non-contention. The mind initiates the redirection. The partners/opponents mind/ki is what needs to be redirected, if you can move their mind, you can move their body with little or no effort.

You are talking like Dan, now. I understand that's true, but I'm still at such a basic level of working with the developmental exercises that I haven't progressed to the level of moving the partner's mind. I can do it to some degree under the "old" paradigm, but not yet within the IS skills. But that's what everyone has been telling me I'm missing.

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Mark Freeman wrote:

Anyway, I do think that both you and Dan are being too dissmissive of Erick, he may well be using a different language to describe something that through his own endeavours and enquiry, he understands and explains in a way that most do not get, in other words it 'goes over their heads'. I can't really call him on it as much of it is just too complex for me. I like simplicity, and one of the reasons I love aikido so much is that it is so simple to do when you 'get it'. The problem is, it is devilishly hard to get to that place.

I was willing to give Erick the benefit of the doubt for a long time but I've finally been convinced that he really doesn't have a clue about the level of work we're discussing. And while I can appreciate a little dense and complex language (I edit biostatistical research papers, among other things), the feeling I get from Erick's posts is not like that. It seems like he wants to be counted among those who "know" but the things he says just don't translate into anything useable. And he won't take the step of going out and getting hold of Dan, Mike or Ark to find out for himself whether he even knows what he's talking about. But he will go on and on with those convoluted explanations that seem to be about nothing at all. And he gets very defensive when you tell him that. It doesn't make me believe him any more.

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Mark Freeman wrote:

Nobody here seems to be offering a 'how to' guide/instruction manual to IT etc., probably because it cant be learnt through words, it has to be instructed by someone who can do it. My shock in all of this is that so few ( according to Dan, Mike etc, ) have these skills in aikido. Is it really as bad as they say out there?

Well...I'm afraid that it is in the US, anyway. As for learning through words, I did get a big boost when Dan once posted an exact how-to description for receiving a push to the chest. I was able to take that and get a friend to push on me and I could do it right away. But there's nothing like direct hands-on instruction.

Anyway, I do think we'll get more how-to little by little--especially if some people would just keep quiet and listen rather than stinking up the threads with a lot of self-entertaining folderol.

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Mark Freeman wrote:

Having said that I will be meeting Mike Sigman this weekend, so I may well be having my backside handed to me on a plate, I will let you all know how I get on

From what I hear, you will know without a doubt whether you have really been pursuing what we're talking about here or if you were mistaken.

It sounds like you know, but meeting someone like Mike can open your eyes to a whole world you never dreamed of: it was right there in front of me, all along, hidden in plain sight, but it took me a long time to recognize it.

Please let us know how that goes!

Best to you.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu